The present disclosure relates to a stretchable wire and a method of fabricating the same.
Although a substrate is expanded by an external stress acting thereto, stretchable electronic devices may maintain their electrical functions without any change. Beyond limits of bendable and/or flexible elements, the stretchable electronic devices have a potential applicability to various fields such as skin sensors for robots, wearable communication devices, human body-built in/-attached bio devices, next generation displays, or the like.
The stretchable electronic devices may have a structure in which metal wires are expandable. The metal wires may be transferred on a surface of a pre-strained stretchable substrate, and then may be formed in a wavy shape as the stretchable substrate is contracted. The wavy shaped metal wires may give a stretch ability to electronic devices. However, in the stretchable electronic devices, the stretch ability of the metal wires may be limited by the amount of pre-strain initially applied to the substrate. Also, since the fabrication processes of the wavy-shaped metal wires are more complicated than the typical semiconductor device fabrication processes, the wavy-shaped metal wires have limitations such as difficulties in applying the same to a large area and securing the reliability thereof.
Other stretchable electronic devices may include a two-dimensional flat spring-shaped wire. Since the fabrication processes of the spring-shaped wire are compatible with the typical semiconductor device fabrication processes, the spring-shaped wire may save costs, easily secure the reliability, and have high electrical conductivity. However, when the spring-shaped wire is stretched, deformation is locally concentrated on a specific portion of the spring-shaped wire to cause a fracture, and thus the spring-shaped wire is limited in increasing the elongation.